It has almost been seven years since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki last won a clay court title on the WTA Tour.
At the 2011 Brussels Open, which is now defunct, she defeated China’s Peng Shuai to win the title. Since then the surface has been more of an Achilles heel for the former world No.1. At the French Open she is yet to go beyond the quarter-finals in what is statistically her worst performing grand slam. On the other hand, she has previously played in five clay-court finals of Premier events. The most recent occurring at the 2015 Stuttgart Open.
“It’s a love-hate relationship I would say,” Wozniacki told reporters in Madrid about her experience on the clay.
“Some days I really like it and I think it’s fine and some days I really don’t like it. I’m just trying to keep a positive mindset going into this clay season and work on a few things. As you get older you get more experience and you kind of know more what to do out there and I’m just trying to take advantage of that.”
The 27-year-old will be hoping to end her drought at the Madrid Open. She enters the tournament with an injury cloud over her head after pulling out of a tournament in Istanbul last week due to an abdominal injury. Although she also recently played an exhibition match against Venus Williams in Copenhagen.
In the men’s game Rafael Nadal is the player to beat, but it’s not quite as clear in the women’s game. This was illustrated last year in Roland Garros when Jelena Ostapenko stunned the field to claim the trophy. Whilst some has criticised the WTA Tour for a lack of consistency, Wozniacki believes the positives are far greater at this time of year.
“I think I always believe in myself and I think that the great thing for me is that I don’t think that there’s one player that is a clay-court specialist.” She said.
“It’s not like we have a Rafa on the women’s tour that you just know, you play him and you may as well just go home.”
“I think that’s the great thing. I think it’s really open, especially on the clay, and I think anyone could win and that’s why I’ll try and take advantage of that.” She added.
Wozniacki last reached the final of the Madrid Open back in 2009. She will get her campaign underway on Sunday against Australia’s Daria Gavrilova. A player she leads 1-0 in their head-to-head.
So far in her career, the world No.2 has featured in 52 WTA finals. Out of that number, 10 of those has been on clay. Although only four out of her 28 titles have occured on the surface.
